


I Never Knew Quite What It Was

by loonyBibliophile



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, coffee shop au because every otp needs one, grimdorks - Freeform, non sburb au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-21
Updated: 2013-02-21
Packaged: 2017-11-30 00:50:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/693467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loonyBibliophile/pseuds/loonyBibliophile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"i kind of really want a grimdorks au where rose is a hipster and john happens to go to the cafe she goes to and they both totally have crushes on each other but rose is so mortified bc john is so lame and she keeps being like ‘its a stupid crush next time i see him i won’t even care’ and then she sees him and she’s like ‘oh no………….’<br/>their first date is like the ghost rider sequel or drive angry or something and when dave (who’s her half brother in this) finds out he just looks at her and asks, ‘so, is it going to be a june wedding’"- from heirsansparents on tumblr</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Never Knew Quite What It Was

The first time Rose sees him, she openly grimaces. If she had a nickel for every guy like him that sauntered into the tiny cafe she worked in and loudly hit on her while talking about terrible music, she wouldn't have to work in the cafe, she could sit in the corner and work on her novel. But, unfortunately, people don't tip. He walks up to the counter and grins at her, which takes her back a little. Because it is an actual grin. Not a smirk, or a sleazy smile or a wink, but a juvenile, earnest, honest to god, grin. His buck teeth stick out a little but she's almost inclined to find it endearing before shaking her head and taking his order. 

"Welcome to La Vie, how may I help you today?" she drawled out at chipperly as possible. He wrinkled his eyebrows together and frowned slightly, bring a hand contemplatively to his chin. His fingers, she couldn't help but notice, were long and slender and attached to wide solid palms, and his hands were exceedingly well taken care of. She mentally battled herself as to whether he was gay, or simply a musician. 

"Just a black coffee is fine." he says finally, with a decisive nod. Definitely just a musician. His voice is deeper than she expected, which leads her to notice the spread of his shoulders and the width of his chest. He'd be muscular compared to anyone off the street, but compared to the scrawny punk boy wannabes that slouch into the shop on a daily basis, he was Hercules. He leans on the counter while she brews a fresh pot of coffee in order to pour his drink from. He grins again, and she can't help but notice how disarmingly earnest he seems. 

"So, what's your name?" he asks. 

"Rose." she says, deadpanned. She waits for the stupid response she gets nine times out of ten, the Shakespeare quotation. She's a literary gal, it was cute the first time, but after the fifth it gets old. He just nods again. 

"I'm John. I just moved here a few weeks ago, got a job at the old theatre down the street as a ticket taker. Kinda boring, but I get to watch movies for free, so that's pretty cool!" his genuine enthusiasm, Rose notes with just the slightest upward quirk of her black lips, is incredibly endearing. She nods in response and pours his coffee and hands him the cup. He reaches for it and his fingers bump hers. A nearly impossible event to avoid, his hands are easily a third bigger than hers, but instead of the usual jolt of revulsion, she feels a pleasant shiver. "Well, see you around Rose!" he waves happily before turning and walking out. 

She shakes off the odd feeling she got from him and checks her lipstick in the espresso machine, and adjusts her headband just in time for her half-brother, one of the many and varied douchebags to frequent the place, walks in and sits on the counter.

"Get off of there." she rolls her eyes at his antics and goes to bus a few empty tables. He glares at her under his shades and doesn't move an inch, glancing at his phone. 

"I have a gig tonight. You coming?"

"Depends. What dive did you and your questionable bandmates manage to convince to let you in?"

"The Warehouse." Rose blinks and looks at him, mildly astonished. "Don't look at me like that. I mean, there's a catch but, fuck yeah, the Warehouse." 

"What's the catch?"

"The owner's got some chick friend just moved to town not too long ago, who apparently plays the bass. We let her play, we get a full set." 

"Is she any good?"

"No idea. Doesn't matter, 'cept for my beats the band's shit anyway. Captor can't sing a note and Maryam's keyboarding skills are questionable at best." he shrugs and slips off the counter. "Anyway, I gotta split. Told Pyrope I'd meet her here at 4." 

"...It's 3:45, why would you leave 15 minutes before you're meant to meet your sometimes paramour?" 

"Because I don't want to see her. I broke things off last night and she wants to talk and I don't want to. Tell her I'm rehearsing." and with that, he was out the door, without so much a squeak of his worn out converse on the scuffed linoleum. 

She doesn't go to his gig, mainly because she gets caught up in her writing, but she hears plenty about it as soon as he gets in the door. 

"Holy fuckin' shit sis." 

"What, Dave? I'm working."

"That bassist girl. Holy. Fuckin'. Shit. Not only can she play the motherfucking crap out of a bass, but she is smoking." 

"As much as your potential sexual exploits interest me, I have to go to bed. I open tomorrow." she shoos him out of her room and sets her alarm, giving herself plenty of time to get ready in the morning before heading off for work. 

The new guy, John, comes in again, about the same time as the day before. 

"It's you again! Hi Rose!" and offers the same upbeat voice and wide, unassuming grin. They talk briefly as she pours his coffee, and again she can't shake an odd shivery feeling that lingers when he walks out the door, but she ignores it and moves on, serving her other customers. 

As the weeks progress, she realizes there's nothing it could be but a crush. A crush she will whole heartedly ignore because, as sweet as the piano player (she finally asked) is, he has atrocious taste in movies, and books, and music and basically everything. Each time he leaves she smiles to herself for several minutes before shaking it off. It's just silly crush, and as sweet as the boy was, he was unquestionably lame, and her feelings would subside with time. 

Eventually, a day rolls around where Rose isn't on shift when John walks in. The boy with the shaggy black hair looks around for her a moment, confused, then shrugs, slightly disappointed, before ordering his usual from the disenfranchised looking kid with purple hair leaning behind the machines. 

"Where's the girl who usually works at this time?" he asks innocently. 

"Who? Oh wait, you mean Lalonde? Slightly pretentious, wears too much black lipstick, headband, blond pixie cut and absurdly short?"

"Yeah! Her!" 

"She took a sick day. I don't think she's sick I think she was kept up all night by the sounds of her douchebag half-brother banging his new girlfriend a room over. Why?"

"Oh, just wondering. I've been coming here a few weeks and had yet to not order from her, that's all!" 

"Well look, kid, if you got the hots for her, keep looking, I doubt you're her type if your shirt is in any way indicative of your serious tastes." the guy nods at John's Ghostbusters shirt before handing him his coffee and slouching off to the back room.

The next day, Rose is back, and John, despite the kid from yesterday's warning, has a plan. 

"Rose!" You're back! It's so good to see you!" he beams at her and she can't help but smile slightly in return. 

"Hello John. Your usual, I presume?"

"Yep! Oh, but something else too!" 

"Oh?"

"Well, I know this may come off as rash, or ungentlemanly, though I certainly hope not, but I was wondering if you might be interested in attending a movie with me tonight? Only if you have no other plans, and if you don't want, it doesn't even have to be a date, and if it is a date, I still promise to make no untoward moves on you without your consent." he's babbling slightly, and Rose toys with the idea of saying no, Dave would have a field day. But at the end of the day, the kid has kind of grown on her. She nods. 

"It's a date." she says with a careful smile.

"Great!" he says enthusiastically, picking up his coffee. "When do you get off of work?"

"Eight pm, usually." 

"I will be here at 8:15 sharp to give you time to freshen up if you so wish, though I doubt you'll need it!"

The movie they see is the sequel to Ghost Rider, and it is very nearly funny in how appalling it is. John, however, fully enjoys the experience without a single trace of irony. This only serves as yet another thing for Rose to add to the ever growing list of the endearing personality traits of John Egbert. And he keeps his promise as well. At the start of the film he asks if it's alright if he puts an arm around her, but other than that he makes no move to feel her up in the dark, or anything else ungentlemanly. It is refreshing to say the least. He drives her back to the cafe for her car, and when he is told she rode her bike to work, he insists he mount it on the bike rack and drive her home. He even walks her to the door and gives her a sweet but chaste kiss on the lips and asks for her number. She kisses him again, still sweet but slightly less chaste, and programs her name and number in for him. 

She walks through the door, trying her best to keep the ridiculous grin off her face as she reads the text he sent her to allow her to save his number, if she so wished. 'Since she's the one for whom I killed the caterpillars (except the two or three butterflies). Since she's the one I listened to when she complained, or when she boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing at all. Since she's my rose.”'. Finally, some originality, and in the form of one of her favorite stories. Perhaps his tastes were salvagable after all. 

"Where the hell were you?" Dave asks, pulling his head from behind the curtain of his, admittedly sweet and enjoyable, girlfriend's long black hair.

"I was on a date." she said simply. 

"Oh!" Jade piped up from her perch in Dave's lap. "So was my cousin!"

Rose quirked an eyebrow "Does your cousin also wear glasses, have endearingly large teeth, and unmanageable black hair?"

"Yup!" she grinned "Oh my gosh!! Were you on a date with John? That is too perfect!"

"It certainly sounds like it."

"What did you guys do?" Dave asked, biting back laughter. 

"We went to the movies." she intentionally left out the title, but apparently Jade was informed of her cousin's plans. 

"John took her to see the sequel to Ghost Rider! He loves Nic Cage for some inexplicable reason."

Dave bursts out laughing and nearly knocks Jade out of his lap. After a good minute of guffawing, her pulls his usual straight face back on. 

"So it'll be June wedding then?" 

Rose throws a pillow at his head, which incites a pillow fight she quickly extricates herself from before Dave and Jade started getting frisky and settled into her room. She grins at her phone and makes a split second decision and reprograms John's name in her phone to simply 'John <3'. 

This just might be the start of something wonderful.

**Author's Note:**

> So I saw a post by heirsansparent about a HipsterRose coffee shop AU and I.. wrote it?  
> The title is from a song by Landon Pigg.
> 
> The quote in the story is from The Little Prince


End file.
